Author Archives: admin

Propaganda for charter school amendment 1 paid for by out-of-state donors

Who can afford to pay for these two glossy mailers pushing
the charter school amendment?
Who are GeorgiaHope2012.org and BrighterGeorgia.org, anyway?
Recipients of millions from Alice Walton and the Walton Family Foundation
to push a bill sponsored in the statehouse by ALEC’s “our state legislators”.
Will we believe Alice Walton and ALEC, or will we believe
our Georgia educators, who overwhelmingly

oppose Amendment 1?


Two glossy mailers pushing the charter school amendment

GeorgiaHope2012.org’s mailer (the big one) says in really light grey type:

Paid for by Families for Better Public Schools Edward Lindsey Chairman

We’ve heard of them before.
They raised

$486,750 by September, about 96% from outside Georgia,

including Alice Walton ($250,000),
K12 Inc. of Virginia ($100,000),
Charter Schools USA of Florida ($50,000),
J.C. Huizenga and National Heritage Academies Inc. of Michigan ($25,000 each).
Their spokesman Bert Brantley (who went to Lowndes County public schools)
claims

the bogus preamble

to the charter school amendment,
the one that uses ALEC
Family Trigger jargon
and asserts things that just aren’t in either of the authorizing bills;
he claims that preamble

is “factual”.

His previous PR campaign was pushing the T-SPLOST transportation tax
that failed by a landslide.

Families for Better Public Schools
is still playing the

charter school bait and switch
in their mailer
by pretending Amendment 1 is needed for charter schools:


EVERY CHILD DESERVES A CHANCE!

VOTE YES!
for Public Charter Schools on November 6th.

We don’t need this amendment to create charter schools.
Any local school board can already do that.

BrighterGeorgia.org’s mailer (the smaller one)
says in grey on grey type:

Paid for by Georgia Charter Schools Association

GCSA got $700,000 from the Walton Family Foundation last year,
and is a member of

Continue reading

WALB on Lowndes County Commission Chair candidates


Gretchen Quarterman billboard

WALB says we have a choice for Chairman of the Lowndes County Commission.

Lydia Jennings wrote for WALB yesterday,

Meet candidates vying for Lowndes Co. Commission Chairman
,


Gretchen Quarterman

Bill Slaughter and Gretchen Quarterman are two very different
candidates. Both are running for Lowndes County Commission Chairman.
Slaughter is the CEO of Waller Heating and Air Conditioning and
Quarterman is a farmer and owner of Okra Paradise Farms.

“I’m very curious, I have a math and science background so I’m
always asking why do we do it this way, not just what do we do, but
why do we do it, what problem are we solving,” said Quarterman.

Continue reading

16,713 Voted in Lowndes County Georgia by 29 Oct 2012

16,713 people have voted in Lowndes County Georgia
in the first two weeks of early voting, through Monday:


Daily and 16,713 Total voting in Lowndes County Georgia by 29 October 2012

Date Daily Total
Monday October 15 1,636 1,636
Tuesday October 16 1,225 2,861
Wednesday October 17 956 3,817
Thursday October 18 643 4,460
Friday October 19 1,433 5,893
Monday October 22 1,289 7,724
Tuesday October 23 1,449 9,173
Wednesday October 24 1,363 10,536
Thursday October 25 1,408 11,944
Friday October 26 1,783 13,727
Saturday October 27 1,279 15,003
Monday October 29 1,707 16,713
Data courtesy of Lowndes County Board of Elections.



You can still vote

during extended voting hours 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. this week at the Board of Elections, 2808 N Oak St., Valdosta,
or on that great election day, November 6th
,
at your precinct.
Several recent elections here have been decided by less than 100 votes.
Your vote counts!

-jsq

Update 30 Oct 2012: Added missing Monday 22 Oct 2012 numbers to table and figure.

LibertYOUtbreak @ LO 2012-10-27


Open, non-partisan forum

A local group, LibertYOUbreak, met at Valdosta High School Saturday
for a series of brief talks of opinion on issues by a variety of local people.

The first talk,
Why No on Amendment 1 by J.C. Cunningham for GA House District 175
,
has already been posted separately.
Here’s

a video playlist
for the rest.


LibertYOUtbreak

Talks, Liberty Outbreak (LO),

Video by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),

VHS PAC, Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 27 October 2012.

First they showed an animated movie,

The American Dream by the Provacateur Network
,
which is mostly about money as debt.
As I remarked to one of the organizers afterwards,
that’s also the theme of

Debt: The First 5,000 Years
,
by David Graeber, one of the founders of Occupy Wall Street
(here’s a

video interview
with him,
and

a text interview
).
The cartoon movie, while presenting that theme in some depth,
only briefly mentions Wall Street
and focuses on the Federal Reserve and an octopus-like long-lived financial
villain it calls Red Shield, which is English for Rothschild.
I find that last a bit far-fetched, not to say outdated,
considering that recent research shows that the real current
octopus-like set of interconnected corporations looks more

like this.

But then plenty of things were said in the recent local
political forums that I didn’t agree with, either.

-jsq

Why No on Amendment 1 —J.C. Cunningham for GA House District 175



J.C. Cunningham, running for state representative district 175,
reminded us all that the basic purpose of the Georgia state government
is to provide public education, according to its constitution,
and that local school boards already can and do approve charter schools.
He gave five reasons for voting No on Amendment 1:

  1. Because out-of-state corporations are paying for this campaign….
  2. It creates a new Atlanta-based government bureaucracy.
  3. The new commission will be filled by appointments done by politicians,
    not the citizens.
  4. Georgia already has 200 charter schools, and we’ve already proven the
    process works.
  5. A Yes vote would… cost us an additional $430 million
    while most of our schools are not open a full year as it is….

The only reasoning that I can tell you that proponents have been giving us
is school choice, and again,
they already have school choice;
we have school choice.
The only new things about Amendment 1 are higher cost
and unnecessary state bureaucracy….

Here’s

the video,

followed by a partial transcript.


Why No on Amendment 1 —J.C. Cunningham for GA House District 175

Talks, Liberty Outbreak (LO),

Video by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),

VHS PAC, Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 27 October 2012.

Partial transcript:

Continue reading

Agenda @ GLPC 2012-10-29


GLPC Agenda 2012-10-29

The Greater Lowndes Planning Commission (GLPC) meets tonight.
Here’s the

agenda.

The agenda was

faxed by GLPC Chairman Bill Slaughter
to Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE
, at her request;
GLPC itself still doesn’t have agendas online, fifteen months after
SGRC stopped posting them.

In his fax cover letter of 23 October 2012, Bill Slaughter noted:


Videos of 30 Club Candidates Forum 2012-10-22

Great Job Last Night!

See You Wed. Evening!


Videos of AAUW Candidates Forum 2012-10-24

Presumably he was referring to her appearance at the

22 October Candidates Forum 30 Club at Serenity Church

and the then-upcoming

24 October Candidates Forum by AAUW at Valdosta High School.

Gretchen Quarterman and Bill Slaughter are the two candidates
for Chairman of the Lowndes County Commission.
You can see LAKE videos of

all four Candidate Forums
online.

There is one Valdosta permit case on tonight’s GLPC agenda,
and three rezoning cases, one from Hahira, and two from the county.
I have been transcribing these faxes, but I don’t have time today,
so here’s a brief summary table.

Valdosta,

Final action

Thursday
8 Nov 2012
2. CU-2012-07 Stafford Properties

1609 Norman Drive, Valdosta

Request for a Conditional Use Permit (CUP for a Car Wash in a Community Commercial C-C zoning district.
Hahira,

Final action

Thursday
1 Nov 2012
3. HA-2012-01 Gateway Pines

1022 W. Stanfill Street, Hahira

Request for a Variance to Parking Requirement prescribed by Section 7-1.1, 7-4, and 9-3.2 of the Hahira Zoning Ordinance
Lowndes County,

Final action

Tuesday
13 Nov 2012
4. REZ-2012-16 Cook County Land Ventures

SW corner of Georgia Highway 122 East and Cat Creek Road, Hahira

Request to rezone ~2 acres from E-A (Estate Agriculture) to C-C (Crossroads Commercial)
5. REZ-2012-17 John Henry Davis dba Lowndes Development, LLC

Davidson Road, Valdosta

Request to rezone 23.49 acres from MAZ-II and MAZ-III (Moody Activity Zone)
to R-10 (Suburban Density Residential)

-jsq

Two more charter school polls: Amendment 1 still losing support

Two more polls about the charter school amendment show conflicting
results, but even the most optimistic still shows decreased support
since September.
Opponents of the Amendment 1 power grab are winning.


Charter school Amendment 1 polls through 25 October 2012

Wayne Washington wrote for the AJC 12 October 2012,

Poll shows tight race for charter schools amendment
,

Continue reading

Support plummeting for charter school amendment

Support for the charter school amendment,
previously falling, is now dropping like a rock.
Saba Long wrote the Saporta Report 15 October 2012,

Latest polls show the Charter School Amendment vote will be close
,
but the actual poll results, when compared to previous polls,
including those before T-SPLOST lost by a landslide,
say Amendment 1 is going down in flames.


Georgia Charter School Polls 2012-10

That poll conducted 4 and 5 October showed 34.2% saying they would definitely
vote no and 18.06% saying probably no.
That’s 52.26% No, which is far higher than

26.2% only a month before.

The pollsters, HEG-GPS, say,

Re: October 4-5 Charter School Amendment Survey,

15.35% responded Probably Yes and only 9.30% said Definitely Yes.
That’s 24.62% Yes,
far down from the 48.3% Yes of a month before.

Yet only 23.12% responded Unsure,
which is hardly changed from 25.5% a month before.
It sure looks to me like this is not just undecideds switching to No.
It looks like a lot of formerly Yes votes are switching to No.

It looks even worse compared to T-SPLOST.
Two weeks before the 31 July Primary election,

Continue reading

15,006 Voted in Lowndes County Georgia by 27 Oct 2012

15,006 people have voted in Lowndes County Georgia
in the first two weeks of early voting, including Saturday:


Daily and 15,006 Total voting in Lowndes County Georgia by 27 October 2012

Date Daily Total
Monday October 15 1,636 1,636
Tuesday October 16 1,225 2,861
Wednesday October 17 956 3,817
Thursday October 18 643 4,460
Friday October 19 1,433 5,893
Tuesday October 23 1,449 9,173
Wednesday October 24 1,363 10,536
Thursday October 25 1,408 11,944
Friday October 26 1,783 13,727
Saturday October 27 1,279 15,003
Data courtesy of Lowndes County Board of Elections.

You can still vote

during extended voting hours this week at the Board of Elections,
or on that great election day, November 6th
,
at your precinct.


Several recent elections here have been decided by less than 100 votes.
Your vote counts!

-jsq

Vote No on the charter school amendment —J.C. Cunningham for GA House District 175 @ 30Club 2012-10-22


J.C. Cunningham for Georgia House district 175 @ 30 Club 2012-10-22

J.C. Cunningham, running for statehouse district 175,
says vote No on the charter school amendment.
At the 30 Club Political Forum at Serenity Church School Monday,
he was asked about differences from his opponent, and

he answered:


Vote No on the charter school amendment —J.C. Cunningham for GA House District 175

Political Forum, 30 Club

Video by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),

Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 22 October 2012.

This amendment was put on for
one reason and one reason only,
because there are powers that did not get their way
and it was strictly for money-grubbing, for-profit charter corporations
that would further take money away from
our Department of Education.

J.C. Cunningham’s opponent, the incumbent Amy Carter,

only showed up at one of the four local candidate forums
in Lowndes County.

However, she voted both for

HR 1162 that put the referendum on the ballot

and for

HB 797 that will suck up more money per pupil for charter schools
than
for public schools, taking the extra out of our local tax dollars.

We know where J.C. Cunningham for district 175 stands:
against the charter school amendment.

-jsq